Slow Burn
by tanith
Summary: Spike plays with fire.


TITLE: Slow Burn 1/1

AUTHOR: tanith

RATING: R - Violent memories - the best kind, no?

SUMMARY: Spike plays with fire.

ARCHIVE: It's all yours, just let me know.

FEEDBACK: Can I just admit it? I live for it, okay? akirgo@yahoo.com

SPOILERS: None, really. Wow.

DISCLAIMER: All I have in my pockets is lint. Even my bank account is lint. Leave me alone.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I *am* working on the sequel to "Dry Kind of Love," but the current season is depressing me and making the creative juices unflowy. Hence, vignettes. Hope you like anyway. And, as always, any helpful suggestions/praise/scolding/whatever, on this or any other fic, is greatly appreciated.

*************

The Victorian mindset was all about restraint. People of that era were trained to rein their emotions in, to keep a tight hold on them. Heaven forbid that one should give away a twinge of boredom, or lust, or anger.

The result of this was that emotions got buried, and got buried deep. Imagine a flame flickering to life in the deep recesses of a person's heart (or stomach, or soul - or spleen, for that matter; whatever body part strikes your fancy) and growing there, constantly fed and never quenched, burning higher and higher, a great bonfire coughing up soot and ash...

We were all dragons buried beneath layers and layers of tweed.

Occasionally someone would snap. An otherwise perfectly respectable husband would strangle his wife over the Sunday roast, or little Lizzie Borden would make history and nursery rhymes with the blade of her axe. One didn't speak of it. Sure, there were whispers in the sitting rooms - "Did you hear?" "How shocking!" - but it was generally considered to be the wisest course of action to pretend such things didn't occur.

Because mostly, they didn't. Your average bloke would live out his entire existense, seething underneath his tight collar but never allowing the emotion to reach his mouth, his eyes, his hands. I am sure I would have been one of them.

But then I died. And everything exploded.

It was such a relief, at first, to finally let it all out. A torrent of fire rushing out of my mouth to the echoing of an animalistic roar. And the blood on my hands - so red, so warm - was but liquid flame.

The spike was used only once, but oh, it was good. He was still alive while I did it, one hand driving the metal in, the other slapping his face, trying to keep him conscious. Went in just above the ear; think he finally blacked out when the shaft hit grey matter. I licked his face clean of the blood.

That night, Dru couldn't get enough of me, and all of Angelus' stares were rimmed with gold. I loved what I was: a fire-eater, a fire-breather, the tyger burning bright. And the world was my eternal forest, scorched with flame.

It lasted nearly a fortnight before I got bored.

Alive I had been patient, almost infinitely so. I'm sure I would have been happy - well, if not happy, at least willing - to admire Cecily from afar until we both shriveled up with old age. Whatever patience I had, though, vanished into the ether with my soul. I was a restless beast.

And driving railroad spikes into the likes of the poncy blokes I used to know? Where was the challenge, where was the glory in that?

Give me fists and fangs any day.

For a hundred years, my anger was a well-honed tool. It got me out of a thousand inescapable situations, brought two Slayers to their knees, and won me my Dru. I burned so brightly that I never missed the sun.

Until I saw her hair, golden waves down her back, and felt the heat of her skin as we grappled. It should have been perfect, epic: flame meeting flame, a dragons' dance, but I paled in comparison to her. Hers was the heat of a supernova and--

Oh, God, listen to me. Just listen. Do you see what she's done?  


(Ash, Dru said, you taste like ash.)

I can feel it again, that desire to repress, to take deep, cleansing, worthless breaths. My hands clench at my sides, but they stay there - pale, worthless hands; thin fingers, smooth palms; "He's never done a days work in his life..."

I want to bash her head in. Take these hands and close them around her neck, force her to look at me as the life flees, so she sees what she's done, so she *sees* what she's *done*...

I want to hold her; I want to touch her lips, the soles of her feet, that little spot on her hip where she's strangely ticklish. I want to cup her chin in my hand so she'll look at me, so she'll *see* *me*...

I burn for her. But I can wait a while longer.

*************

END


End file.
